Erasing Memories, a kingdom hearts fanfic

Title: Erasing Memories
Rating: PG/K+
Pairings, if any: hinted/vague ReplikuNaminé
Summary: "…Can't…can't you erase your own memories?" Replica asked, steadying her shaking hand as she tried to erase her memory sketched out on paper.
Word Count: 2627
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the CoM game.
CoM
A/N: Thanks so, so, so, much to marmaladecat and neffervescent for betaing this for me and doing such a wonderful job. 3 . Part of the Music Box-verse; see profile for details

Naminé woke up each morning to a series of constant events; the familiarity of them was both comforting but at the same time disheartening and she knew that there was nothing she could do about it.

Every morning on her small marble table there were new crayons, new pencils, fresh paper, tape, all manner of things that she would end up using the entire day; all of it was brought to her by a single person, unfailingly and with a consistency that made her non-existent heart ache because of the blind devotion.

"Do you like them?"

Naminé paused in her sketch, slender hands halting, glancing up to meet blue-green eyes. "The pencils?" she asked, gently setting the sketchbook on the table and the pencils on top of it. The Replica nodded, fringed bangs obscuring his eyes for a moment as he reached out a hand for her to take so he could help her up. He wore his gloves, just like every other time that he touched her; he was always painfully careful to keep their skin from touching as if he were afraid he would contaminate her with something. It didn't keep him from touching her, however; be it a hand up –even though they both knew that she was able to get up on her own anyway- or a warm weight on her shoulder, or leather-clad fingers brushing through her hair fleetingly, he touched her as if it was comforting to him. "Of course I did. They blend wonderfully; thank you."

The smile that curled the Replica's lips lit up his eyes and when he brushed fingers over her cheek she felt echoes guilt rolling about inside her.

Sora scrambled up the stairs, yelping a little as he tripped when a Heartless materialized right under his feet, its glowing yellow eyes fixed on him. With an awkward little stumble, he swung the Keyblade at it and managed to not fall down; from below a few feet he could hear Goofy call out, "Nice movin' Sora!" as if he'd done the move on purpose. Grinning tiredly, he sliced through another Heartless and kept going as fast as he could up the stairs. Each step he took was only one more reminder that he had to keep going; he had to find Kai-mine and Riku and he had to figure out why all of this was happening. He was forgetting things and it was almost scary because they were important things and he knew that- he just couldn't keep them straight in his head.

'I'm Sora. I grew up on Destiny Islands. My best friends are Riku and…and the girl…' he faltered, nearly slipping down the marble steps once more but catching himself. 'Her. I know her- I…I'll remember her soon. She's too important for me to not. My name is S-O-R-A and I won't forget it.'

"You draw him a lot," the Replica stated, his voice carefully bland as he slid fingers over the colored pictures posted on all of the blindingly white walls. "Why him?"

Naminé looked over, brushing her bangs behind her ears and wondering if it was jealousy that she heard in his voice. "I have to. I'm still working on his memories and it takes a long time."

The Replica glanced back guiltily, head tilting down so his bangs obscured his eyes and came to stand behind her, waiting for the silent permission to touch her and resting leather-clad hands on her slender shoulders when it came. "An island?"

"His island," she replied, shading in a subtle hint of green with the blue of the water. The Replica nodded, watching as the girl roughly sketched on the beach slowly had blonde hair and pale, pale skin- too pale for an island, almost; peach and ivory where a normal tanned tone would be. "It's where they grew up. Would…would you like the memory?"

The Replica stiffened behind her and she instantly knew the conflict warring inside of him. He knew what she was doing to Sora, how she was shifting his memories inside of his head and twisting them to her own design and part of him rebelled against the idea of someone sticking their fingers into his memories and playing games. "They're his, though," he said carefully, backing away from behind her and moving so he was leaning with his hip on the table, hiding his eyes with his hair once more. "Can you even do that?"

Naminé tilted her head up and regarded him with a carefully blank look. "I would only do it if you wanted me to." She paused in her shading, smearing some of the colors together with her fingertips, blending the blues and the greens, the yellows, reds, oranges, waiting for him to respond. "And I can. I can chain memories together from anyone who is connected to Sora's heart."

There was a long moment of silence in the white room before the Replica knelt down in front of her, gently taking the picture from her and setting it on the table, hands on her knees. "I trust you."

'You shouldn't.' Swallowing hard, Naminé lifted her hands to cup his face, colors smearing across his cheeks slightly as she met his steady, trusting gaze with her own. "If you're sure." She brushed his bangs from his eyes, picking up the piece of paper and holding it for a moment before smiling sadly and holding her fingers to his temples. With a simple brush of her mind against his, she broke a chain of memories, fusing the new one in with the others and slipping out once more back into her own mind and the teen slumped limply across her lap.

Naminé sighed, one hand propping her chin up as she sketched out the three teens sitting on the paopu tree, keeping the girl between the two boys, uncolored. Behind her, there was the quiet click-click of boots against the white marble and a shadow fell over her. Opening her mouth to greet the Replica, she froze when she felt two large hands grip her shoulders just on the side of too painful- it wasn't him. "M-Marluxia."

"Hello, my little witch," Marluxia purred above her, bending down a little and pressing his lips to her ear so that she could feel the wicked smirk against her skin. "My, you have been busy." She remained silent; hoping that he would simply see the drawings and leave her alone as he did most times, save for when he was in a bad mood. "However, I do have a question."

Still as unmoving as she could make herself she waited, shuddering a little when he trailed his hands down her shoulders to cup her hands in his. "That girl, there," he began, tracing her fingers over the girl in the middle and slowly crumpling a bit of the paper, "she isn't you. In fact, how many of these are needed?" His hands tightened around hers, the pain echoing in her dimly and making her breath catch. "You are not here to give the Replica memories of his own. Your only purpose is to make Sora into what we want- don't waste our time by playing games with the other tool; he'll expend his usefulness far before the little Keyblade child will."

His grip tightened a little more and a ragged noise escaped Naminé at the feel of it and then, just like that, he let her go, leaving her to wrap her arms around herself as if she could make herself smaller simply by that. "I trust I've gotten my point across?"

"Yes," she bit out, staring at the white floors. He chuckled darkly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and striding out, leaving her alone in the room.

Naminé halted any kind of conversation about the finger-shaped bruises on her pale skin before the Replica could even start them; instead she pulled him to her and pressed her fingers to his temples to give him another memory.

'My name is S-o-r-a. When I was young-'

-he tried to eat this purple and green fruit and it made him sick for the whole day. I suppose it's kind of my fault but I didn't think he'd actually eat it. Naminé was always saying that it would be my fault if he ended up hurt because we always had to be better than each other. She looked so mad at me and even though Sora was about to puke his guts out he was laughing at her face. Puke his guts out- I'm sounding more and more like him every day.

I suppose I should ask and see if we're going to go swimming today- he said he wanted to and-

Sora stumbled once more, skidding on the steps and clutching his head as the world went fuzzy around him, breathing raggedly. 'My name is Sora, my name is Sora, my name is Sora. I live on Destiny Islands, I'm friends with- with… they're-'

"Sora?" Goofy placed one paw on his shoulder and Sora shook off the phantom pain, pushing the lack of memory out of his head for the moment.

"I'm fine- we have to keep going." He pasted a strong smile on his face and held the Keyblade in his hand once more. "C'mon."

"What do you think will happen," he asked quietly, watching her draw a picture of Sora running up winding stairs, "if we die?"

"If?" Naminé echoed softly, flipping to a different page and then to another, fingers moving deftly, hurriedly and the Replica caught her wrist in one loose, firm grip before she could move more. "D-don't." She tugged gently, knowing he wouldn't hurt her but also knowing that he wouldn't stop until he figured out what she was hiding from him.

"Go back one," he ordered quietly, watching as she slowly pushed back a page and revealed a hastily sketched out drawing, eraser marks, ragged colors and rough lines blending to form Marluxia standing behind her and suddenly the finger-bruises made sense. Quickly he released her wrist as if burned and stared hard at the picture, watching as she half-heartedly started to erase it. "Can't you… can't you fix your own memories?"

"No." She shook her head, not resisting when he took her hand in his and helped her erase, steadying her hand. "No, I can't. They're not in my power to fix, no matter how much I wish."

The Replica made no sound at first, simply thinking, jaw clenched. He could still feel her tension, her fear in the tightness of her shoulders; he could see it in the way she held her pencil and he knew that she would never admit her fears."I'll be strong enough to beat him, Sora, Riku and Marluxia too. I'll be strong enough for you."

Naminé said nothing, only offered him a small, sad smile that he couldn't help but think was simply humoring him.

In the end, nothing ended up how he promised- how he hoped it would. There was no defeat of Marluxia, Sora still roamed the twisting halls of the castle, and it was Riku that looked down at him, face carefully neutral as he, the Replica, melted into nothingness. "So this is the end… figures. But I'm not afraid. Good riddance to an artificial life. I never had a real heart; even what I'm feeling now is probably fake."

Riku looked down at him, eyes unreadable and it was like looking in a mirror only to see the more jaded side of yourself. "What are you feeling?"

Whorls of darkness rolled off of his steadily fading body and he distantly thought of Naminé in her white room, his promise to protect her, and the memories she gave him. "What happens when someone who's not real dies? Where will my heart go? That is, if it doesn't disappear completely…" he smirked a little, arrogance rising up in him because he refused to die like a weakling.

"It'll go somewhere. Probably the same place my heart will go." Riku took a step back, watching his double draw in a shaky breath and then exhale a slight laugh.

"Heh…" The teen stared up at the pure white ceiling. "How original. Oh, well."

Naminé bit her lip, slender fingers plucking off a piece of tape and placing it on a new picture, making her way over to a clear spot on a wall and putting it there. It wouldn't fit anywhere in Riku or Sora's chains of memories, but it was a reminder. Just as she smoothed her hands over the picture a final time, the door to the room opened, revealing a slightly startled-looking Riku.

"You're Naminé?"

She stared at him for a long moment and like that, she made sure to promise to right all the wrongs; if not for Sora and Riku, then for the Replica- the other Riku.

The endddd. Please, let me know what you think, how you thought it worked, how the characterization was, etc. etc. I really enjoyed writing this; it was a change since I've never written Repliku before and Naminé is always fun to write. The last bit between Riku and Repliku was taken directly from the game script.